Exclusive Interview with Greyston Holt for Bitten
Interview by Jamie Ruby
Written by Jamie Ruby

One of Syfy's new series, Bitten, recently premiered. The series focuses on Elena Michaels (Laura Vandervoort), the only female to ever live through being bitten by a werewolf. She wants to live a normal human life with her boyfriend Philip McAdams (Paul Greene), but is pulled back to the pack to help solve a murder by a mutt. Things are made more complicated by the fact that one of the pack members is Clayton Danvers, played by Greyston Holt, who is also her ex-boyfriend, and is still in love with her.

Holt recently talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about his new series.

Holt got the part of Clay after sending in his audition. "I basically, almost about a year ago actually, just had an audition for it. I live in Vancouver, and my agent and I, we taped an audition for it and sent it out to Toronto and didn't do anything for a little bit. And then they called, and they wanted to see another tape.

"So of course we sent another one, and they liked that, and then they hooked up a Skype meeting.

"So I went to a studio here in Vancouver and did a Skype meeting with them, and then they flew me out to Toronto to screen test for it, and about a week after that I found out I booked it."

The actor read the book before taking on the role. "I read the book, I read just the first one, Bitten, and I kind of was reading Savage a little bit through shooting as well. It was interesting to have this sort of rich backstory in front of you as a resource, but at the same time we have to kind of take artistic license and create our characters how we see them a little bit, which has been interesting, because fans of the books have such strong opinions and ideas about what characters should look like or they should talk like. I think when they watch the show, they'll be pretty happy with what we did."

He talked a bit about one of the changes he made to Clay. "I just did my thing and I was open to any constructive criticism. There wasn't much; they kind of liked what we were doing, and it worked out in the end. One thing I took the liberty of doing was not portraying Clay with a southern accent, which he has in the books. But other than that, we just kind of did our thing."

Because of Armstrong's book series, the show was already popular months before it aired, or was even done being shot. "Just based on the fact that it's on the book series, and that they were so popular, we were invited to Fan Expo (last year). The show, we just wrapped, I think we were still filming even, but we went and there were tons of fans that came out. We filled an auditorium of a couple hundred people that were just excited for the show and love the books. It was really cool to see. It gives us some hope and confidence that people are going to really like the show we have that base audience already."

The actor was drawn to the character from the beginning. "There's a really interesting dynamic with Clay, of this loyalty to Jeremy Danvers (Greg Bryk), our pack Alpha, but still yearning for his love for Elena, and it's cool levels to play. Like there's the woman you love, but there's the man that you've sworn an oath to and that you're loyal to, so it's a fun dynamic to play."

Holt sees some of himself in Clay. "I'm pretty cerebral I guess you would say, like I'm very in my head and observant. And also where I grew up was a very rural area, and I was always running around in the forest, so I have a connection to nature as well, which is something I brought to the character."

The character has a really interesting backstory. "Basically Clay was a feral werewolf alone running around in the swamps of New Orleans down south, and word got out about me, and Jeremy found out about me, and he went down and kind of took me under his wing, or his leg I guess you'd say (laughs), and domesticated me and trained me and made me a functioning human, basically, because I didn't even speak English or any language; I was just basically a dog. So that's an interesting backstory and I had kind of sworn my life to him, to be loyal to him."

There's also a lot of backstory coming up on how Clay met Elena. "We get into how Elena was turned. I bit her; I turned her into a werewolf, which is why she's so important; she is the only female to ever survive a bite."

Holt went on to explain that Clayton is a rare werewolf as well, and not all of them exist because they were bitten. "There are hereditary werewolves, and there are wolves bitten in; I was bitten in, and for me to survive at that young age was not normal either."

The actor talked about working with Vandervoort. "Working with Laura's been fantastic. When I flew out to Toronto for the screen test, we also did a chemistry read, so that was the first time I met Laura; she was already cast. And so we did a couple scenes, and we kind of right off the bat had a comfort with each other and there's chemistry, so that was awesome.

"Then in our personal lives we got along great, and then our relationship just kind of developed over the series and she's a great actress and it was a fun ride doing thirteen episodes with her."

In the beginning of the season, Clay and his brother Nick (Steve Lund) fight, and Holt talked about the stunt. "It was a fun scene because that kind of reverts back to the animal side of us, you know, dogs playing, and trying to show their dominance. But it was fun to film; we had a great stunt coordinator in John Stead, and it was a fun little scene, and I think it was the first fight scene that I've filmed."

There were more stunts later in the season that the actor was able to partake in. "I'm not trained in martial arts; I'm trained in cross fit I guess, so I'm in shape, [and] I've done fight scenes before on other shows, but [with] this I got thrown in the deep end, and our stunt coordinator was awesome and patient, and I just learned a lot from this shoot. And we had tons of fight sequences, especially towards the end, and they're pretty damn good."

Though he did do stunts and fight like a wolf, Holt didn't get to use prosthetics to look like a wolf. "I actually didn't film a change in the first season; I'm hoping next season I'll get to. I mean you see my wolf form, but you don't see me go through the change.

"But Laura does a change in the first episode, I think, but it's all CGI VFX, so no prosthetics. I think there may be some small prosthetics, like hands or something like closeups, but the overall change is all VFX computer stuff."

Besides hoping to change, Holt has thought of other things he would like to see happen on the show. "I would like to maybe delve into my backstory a little bit. I mean, I know that this show is based around Elena's character, so I don't know where we're going to go in that sense, but it's a really interesting backstory. Not that I would be playing that stuff, because they'd probably hire a younger me, but that would be neat [to see] just all of our history. It would be cool, because it's such a rich history. It would be neat to see them go there, but I really don't have a clue where they're going for (possibly) the second season. I know that we're trying to stick to the books as much as we can, but sometimes we have to go off."

There are a lot of shows on television today that feature werewolves, and Holt talked about how Bitten is different, and why people should tune in. "To be honest, I haven't really seen other werewolf shows, but the cool thing about this show, is that there's a really strong female lead, which Laura kills. She's amazing and awesome. And I'm not sure about these other shows, but it's nice to see a strong female lead take over a show in a sense.

"Then also at the same time we have our pack which is a manly kind of man's man pack of these men that live at Stonehaven, and there's almost like a Sopranosesqe mob sense to us: we look out for our own, and you don't want to screw with the pack.

"And then there're lovely intertwining relationships; there's violence; there's gore; there're wicked fight sequences, and some great acting across the board, so I think people will like it."

The actor also teased what he thinks fans will be excited about. "I think they'll be interested to find out who makes it and who doesn't."

Besides Bitten you can also see Holt in the upcoming film See No Evil 2. "I just recently filmed a couple months ago, See No Evil 2. It's a slasher film made by WWE pictures, and I worked with the Soska sisters, who are this awesome directing duo, but that was fun. I'm not sure when that's going to be out though."

There are some people that Holt has dreamed of working with, but he's quite happy for now. "Obviously it'd be cool to do a Scorsese film or something like that, a big movie like that, but I'm just happy to get what I get at this point and I've enjoyed everyone I've worked with so far. It's just a ride, I mean, I've loved every bit of it, no matter who's directing it or who I'm acting with."

You can catch Holt as Clayton Danvers, which the actor summed up in three words: passionate, brilliant, and impulsive, Mondays on Bitten on Syfy.